Richard Alderson on Recording Dylan's Gaslight and 1966 Shows

1962-10-??, The Gaslight Cafe, New York, NY

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Update June 2023: This interview is included along with 40+ others in my new book ‘Pledging My Time: Conversations with Bob Dylan Band Members.’ Buy it in hardcover, paperback, or ebook here!

“Most people identify me with Dylan,” Richard Alderson says, despite his work with Dylan only being a blip in a long career. Two blips, actually: He first recorded the famous Gaslight 1962 show and then toured as Dylan’s sound engineer in 1966. You wouldn’t have heard “Judas!” without Richard’s recordings. Here’s a short documentary about Richard’s work there, released to promote the 1966 box set:

But, when I called him up recently, we focused mostly on that Gaslight recording, known as the Second Gaslight Tape (the first was in ‘61). Though the exact dates are unclear, Alderson says this tape combines two nights in October, after-hours showcases for Dylan to try out some new material. The first night, Alderson says, Dylan performed the traditional folk repertoire he’d been doing around the Village for a year or so. Then on the second, Dylan played early versions of new songs like “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.”

This recording is the earliest Dylan concert to get an official release; the album Live At The Gaslight 1962 came out in 2005. As Alderson will be quick to tell you, though, that album does not tell the complete story, compiling only ten of the seventeen songs and using bootleg versions rather than his master tapes.

Here’s my conversation with Richard Alderson about the Second Gaslight Tape and much more:

Let's start at the beginning. What was your entry into the Greenwich Village scene in the ‘60s?

I originally got there in 1955, when I was 18. I came to Greenwich Village from Lakewood, Ohio. I had been to Greenwich Village as a tourist with my parents. And I knew that's where I wanted to live. So I came on a Greyhound bus with $75 in cash in a little tiny rucksack with my books and a change of clothes in it.

I thought I knew a lot about classical music, so I went to Sam Goody's, which was his original store before it became a chain. I went there thinking I would get a job as a salesman. And of course, they laughed at me and gave me a job in the mail order department, where my classical knowledge didn't have any application. But I was glad to get a job and I stayed for a couple of years.

Then I went back to Ohio. Because I had worked in Sam Goody's, I got a job at a record store. Hi-fi was always my hobby, and I opened the hi-fi department at the record store in downtown Cleveland.

I had heard when I was in New York about a job that was coming up. Somebody called or wrote me from New York and said the job was available. And so I came [back] with my new wife, who was pregnant at the time with my first son.

What was the job?

It was installing hi-fi equipment for Thalia Hi-Fi Audio, which was originally on West 96th Street and moved to Madison Avenue and 65th Street. I installed hi-fi equipment for all kinds of rich people and well-known musicians.

Right around the corner from the store lived Sherman Fairchild, who was the richest man in America, although I didn't know that. He owned the greater portion of IBM, which was willed him by his father. Sherman was a very odd duck. He was a confirmed bachelor and he was also a hi-fi enthusiast. He had his own audio company, Fairchild Audio, which never made any money. He hired me to be his personal audio assistant. He was impressed with some installations that I did for his millionaire friends. That was the beginning of my professional audio career.

Fairchild gave me a mono recorder, a Kudelski Nagra, to use. Through him, I befriended Bob Fine, who recorded all the early Mercury Living Presence records. He became my mentor and he gave me a bunch of microphones. The first Bob Dylan recording I did was with that Nagara and my microphones. And it was at the Gaslight.